In mathematics, a proof is a convincing demonstration (within the accepted standards of the field) that some mathematical statement is necessarily true. Proofs are obtained fromdeductive reasoning, rather than from inductive or empirical arguments. That is, a proof must demonstrate that a statement is true in all cases, without a single exception. An unproved proposition that is believed to be true is known as a conjecture.

The statement that is proved is often called a theorem. Once a theorem is proved, it can be used as the basis to prove further statements. A theorem may also be referred to as alemma, especially if it is intended for use as a stepping stone in the proof of another theorem.

Plausibility arguments using heuristic devices such as pictures and analogies preceded strict mathematical proof..[1] The early history of the concept of proof dates back to the early Greek and Chinese civilisations. Thales (640–546 BCE) proved some theorems in geometry. Eudoxus (408–355 BCE) and Theaetetus (417–369 BCE) formulated theorems but did not prove them. Aristotle (384–322 BCE) said definitions should describe the concept being defined in terms of other concepts already known. Euclid (300 BCE) began with undefined terms and axioms (propositions regarding the undefined terms assumed to be self-evidently true, from the Greek “axios” meaning “something worthy”) and used these to prove theorems using deductive logic. Modern proof theory treats proofs as inductively defined data structures. There is no longer an assumption that axioms are "true" in any sense; this allows for parallel mathematical theories built on alternate sets of axioms (seeAxiomatic set theory and Non-Euclidean geometry for examples).

The word Proof comes from the Latin probare meaning "to test". Related modern words are the English "probe", "proboscis”, "probation", and "probability", and the Spanish "probar" (to smell or taste, or (lesser use) touch or test). The early use of "probity" was in the presentation of legal evidence. A person of authority, such as a nobleman, was said to have probity, whereby the evidence was by his relative authority, which outweighed empirical testimony.[2]

Nature and purpose

There are two different conceptions of mathematical proof.[3] The first is an informal proof, a rigorous natural-language expression that is intended to convince the audience of the truth of a theorem. Because of their use of natural language, the standards of rigor for informal proofs will depend on the audience of the proof. In order to be considered a proof, however, the argument must be rigorous enough; a vague or incomplete argument is not a proof. Informal proofs are the type of proof typically encountered in published mathematics. They are sometimes called "formal proofs" because of their rigor, but logicians use the term "formal proof" to refer to a different type of proof entirely.

In logic, a formal proof is not written in a natural language, but instead uses a formal language consisting of certain strings of symbols from a fixed alphabet. This allows the definition of a formal proof to be precisely specified without any ambiguity. The field of proof theory studies formal proofs and their properties. Although each informal proof can, in theory, be converted into a formal proof, this is rarely done in practice. The study of formal proofs is used to determine properties of provability in general, and to show that certainundecidable statements are not provable.

Proofs may be viewed as aesthetic objects, admired for their mathematical beauty. The mathematician Paul Erdős was known for describing proofs he found particularly elegant as coming from "The Book", a hypothetical tome containing the most beautiful method(s) of proving each theorem. The book Proofs from THE BOOK, published in 2003, is devoted to presenting 32 proofs its editors find particularly pleasing.

Methods of proofDirect proof

In direct proof, the conclusion is established by logically combining the axioms, definitions, and earlier theorems. For example, direct proof can be used to establish that the sum of two evenintegers is always even:

For any two even integers x and y we can write x = 2a and y = 2b for some integers a and b, since both x and y are multiples of 2. But the sum x + y = 2a + 2b = 2(a + b) is also a multiple of 2, so it is therefore even by definition.

In proof by mathematical induction, first a "base case" is proved, and then an "induction rule" is used to prove a (often infinite) series of other cases. Since the base case is true, the infinity of other cases must also be true, even if all of them cannot be proved directly because of their infinite number. A subset of induction is infinite descent. Infinite descent can be used to prove the irrationality of the square root of two.

The principle of mathematical induction states that: Let N = { 1, 2, 3, 4, ... } be the set of natural numbers and P(n) be a mathematical statement involving the natural number n belonging to N such that

Mathematicians often use the term "proof by induction" as shorthand for a proof by mathematical induction.[4] However, the term "proof by induction" may also be used in logic to mean an argument that uses inductive reasoning.

Proof by transposition

Proof by transposition establishes the conclusion "if p then q" by proving the equivalentcontrapositive statement "if not q then not p".

Proof by contradiction

In proof by contradiction (also known as reductio ad absurdum, Latin for "by reduction toward the absurd"), it is shown that if some statement were so, a logical contradiction occurs, hence the statement must be not so. This method is perhaps the most prevalent of mathematical proofs. A famous example of a proof by contradiction shows that is anIrrational number:

Suppose that is a rational number, so where a and b are non-zero integers with no common factor (definition of a rational number). Thus, . Squaring both sides yields 2b2 = a2. Since 2 divides the left hand side, 2 must also divide the right hand side (as they are equal and both integers). So a2 is even, which implies that a must also be even. So we can write a = 2c, where c is also an integer. Substitution into the original equation yields 2b2 = (2c)2 = 4c2. Dividing both sides by 2 yields b2 = 2c2. But then, by the same argument as before, 2 divides b2, so b must be even. However, if a and b are both even, they share a factor, namely 2. This contradicts our assumption, so we are forced to conclude that is an irrational number.

In proof by exhaustion, the conclusion is established by dividing it into a finite number of cases and proving each one separately. The number of cases sometimes can become very large. For example, the first proof of the four colour theorem was a proof by exhaustion with 1,936 cases. This proof was controversial because the majority of the cases were checked by a computer program, not by hand. The shortest known proof of the four colour theorem today still has over 600 cases.

Probabilistic proof

A probabilistic proof is one in which an example is shown to exist, with certainty, by using methods of probability theory. This is not to be confused with an argument that a theorem is 'probably' true. The latter type of reasoning can be called a 'plausibility argument' and is not a proof; in the case of the Collatz conjecture it is clear how far that is from a genuine proof.[5] Probabilistic proof, like proof by construction, is one of many ways to show existence theorems.

Combinatorial proof

A combinatorial proof establishes the equivalence of different expressions by showing that they count the same object in different ways. Often a bijection between two sets is used to show that the expressions for their two sizes are equal. Alternatively, a double counting argument provides two different expressions for the size of a single set, again showing that the two expressions are equal.

Nonconstructive proof

A nonconstructive proof establishes that a certain mathematical object must exist (e.g. "Some X satisfies f(X)"), without explaining how such an object can be found. Often, this takes the form of a proof by contradiction in which the nonexistence of the object is proven to be impossible. In contrast, a constructive proof establishes that a particular object exists by providing a method of finding it. A famous example of a nonconstructive proof shows that there exist two irrational numbersa and b such that ab is a rational number:

Either is a rational number and we are done (take ),
or is irrational so we can write and .
This then gives , which is thus a rational
of the form ab.

Although not a formal proof, a visual demonstration of a mathematical theorem is sometimes called a "proof without words". The picture at right is an example of a historic visual proof of the Pythagorean theorem in the case of the (3,4,5) triangle.

Elementary proof

An elementary proof is a proof which only uses basic techniques. More specifically, the term is used in number theory to refer to proofs that make no use of complex analysis. For some time it was thought that certain theorems, like the prime number theorem, could only be proved using "higher" mathematics. However, over time, many of these results have been reproved using only elementary techniques.

Two-column proof

A two-column proof published in 1913

A particular form of proof using two parallel columns is often used in elementary geometry classes.[6] The proof is written as a series of lines in two columns. In each line, the left hand column contains propositions (or sometimes called statements), while the right hand column contains a brief explanation of how this proposition is either an axiom, a hypothesis, or can be obtained from previous lines (or sometimes just called "reasons").

Until the twentieth century it was assumed that any proof could, in principle, be checked by a competent mathematician to confirm its validity.[1] However, computers are now used both to prove theorems and to carry out calculations that are too long for any human or team of humans to check; the first proof of the four color theorem is an example of a computer-assisted proof. Some mathematicians are concerned that the possibility of an error in a computer program or a run-time error in its calculations calls the validity of such computer-assisted proofs into question. In practice, the chances of an error invalidating a computer-assisted proof can be reduced by incorporating redundancy and self-checks into calculations, and by developing multiple independent approaches and programs.

Undecidable statements

A statement that is neither provable nor disprovable from a set of axioms is called undecidable (from those axioms). One example is the parallel postulate, which is neither provable nor refutable from the remaining axioms of Euclidean geometry.

While early mathematicians such as Eudoxus of Cnidus did not use proofs, from Euclid to the foundational mathematics developments of the late 19th and 20th centuries, proofs were an essential part of mathematics.[10] With the increase in computing power in the 1960’s, significant work began to be done investigating mathematical objects outside of the proof-theorem framework,[11] in experimental mathematics. Early pioneers of these methods intended the work ultimately to be embedded in a classical proof-theorem framework, e.g. the early development of fractal geometry[12], which was ultimately so embedded.

Related concepts

Colloquial use of "mathematical proof"

The expression "mathematical proof" is used by lay people to refer to using mathematical methods or arguing with mathematical objects, such as numbers, to demonstrate something about everyday life, or when data used in an argument are numbers. It is sometime also used to mean a "statistical proof" (below), especially when used to argue from data.

Statistical proof using data

"Statistical proof" from data refers to the application of statistics, data analysis, orBayesian analysis to infer propositions regarding the probability of data. While using mathematical proof to establish theorems in statistics, it is usually not a mathematical proof in that the assumpions from which probability statements are derived require empirical evidence from outside mathematics to verify. In physics, in addition to statistical methods, "statistical proof" can refer to the specialized mathematical methods of physicsapplied to analyze data in a particle physicsexperiment or observational study incosmology. "Statistical proof" may also refer to raw data or a convincing diagram involving data, such as scatter plots, when the data or diagram is adequately convincing without further anaylisis.

Philosopher-mathematicians such as Schopenhauer have attempted to formulate philosophical arguments in an axiomatic manner, whereby mathematical proof standards could be applied to argumentation in general philosophy. Other mathematician-philosophers have tried to use standards of mathematical proof and reason, without empiricism, to arrive at statements outside of mathematics, but having the certainty of propositions deduced in a mathematical proof, such as Descarte’s cogito argument. Kantand Frege considered mathematical proof to be analytic apriori.